If indications count for anything, Australia is shortly going to be
quite up to date in the science of exploitation. Though local
exploiters have never exhibited any other tendencies than those
characteristic of their class throughout the world in this respect,
still their economic experts and politicians, Labor and Liberal alike,
would appear to be of the opinion that there are a few tips on the
"scientific" management of labour which their Australian paymasters
would do well to study. So the various State Governments have jointly
agreed to import a gentleman from U. S. A., "the land of the free and
the home of the slave," where the art of wringing the last ounce of
surplus-value out of the worker's hide has of late years made more
progress than in any other country in the world.

The
subject of "Industrial Efficiency" was briefly dealt with in a recent
issue of "Direct Action" in reply to an article which appeared on the
subject in the Sydney "Sun," but as the matter is evidently going to
develop into something more than a "pious wish" on the part of the
master class and their press, a more detailed explanation of the manner
in which "scientific management" works out, so far as the worker is
concerned, is necessary.

Perhaps one could not do better in this
respect than quote the following extract from an article on the subject
in the Sydney "Morning Herald" of June 19:

After pointing out
that in "an ideal state of things the savings effected would be
distributed between all three," capitalist, wage-worker, and consumer,
the writer lets the cat out of the bag, so far as the capitalist system
being "an ideal State" is concerned, by informing us that: "At the
Bethlehem Steel Works wages were increased 60 per cent in this way. The
new system of work here raised the output of iron per man from 16 to 59
tons, and the aggregate wages bill, despite the increase in the rate,
was cut down by about $80,000 per annum. The net result, as Hobson
points out, was in this case all in favour of the employers."

Whoever
"Hobson" may be, it was scarcely necessary for him to point out such a
very obvious fact. As we are not given the value of the total wages, or
the value of the aggregate output, it is impossible in this case to
determine the rate of surplus value (the proportion of profits to
wages) realised by the employers; but, nevertheless, it is clear that
if the rate of wages increased by 60 per cent (which, by the way, may
be taken with the proverbial grain of salt), and the aggregate wages
decreased by $80,000, somewhere in the neighbourhood of 50 per cent of
the workers formerly employed went to swell the "capitalist reserve
army," the unemployed.

This is, as a matter of fact, how every
scheme for intensifying exploitation, whether it be euphoniously called
"scientific management" or any other name, must eventually, by the
natural laws of capitalist production, work out.

Let us assume
that the total social capital advanced in wages for a given period be
equal to 100. If, in the process of production, values equal to 200 are
produced we have a rate of surplus value equal to 100 per cent. (We
leave aside the consideration of the value of the raw material, etc.,
as such value is always incorporated in the new product, and,
therefore, in the long run, costs the capitalist nothing.)

Now
if, by "scientific management" or other schemes for increasing the
intensity of labour, the total values produced are increased to 250, we
have still the same result, so far as the material position of the
worker is concerned, only the rate of surplus-value, or, to put it more
boldly, the rate at which he is robbed, has increased by 50 per cent.

The
capitalist plea for Industrial Efficiency therefore, at best, merely
amounts to saying to the worker: "The more you allow me to rob you, the
more of the proceeds of the robbery I will be enabled to pay you." If,
however, values equal to 200 are only needed to supply the solvent
demand, we have the same result as that pointed out by the "Herald"
scribe in the case of the Bethlehem Steel Works. Hand in hand with the
increase in the intensity of labor goes unemployment, with the
starvation and misery which follows in its train. And yet we have
"economists" who pretend that the education of the working class is
their first desire, and politicians of every stripe, informing us that
the salvation of the workers lies in increased efficiency!

It
may be contended that, as in the case of the Bethlehem Steel Works, the
workers actually employed benefit by increased wages. Even assuming
this to be the case, what of it? The position of the working class as a
whole, is more insecure, more unstable, more parlous than ever.
Competition for jobs grows more keen, unemployment becomes intensified
in all spheres of industry, and wages ultimately fall, in consequence,
to their former level.

II.

The capitalist system of
production is conditioned upon three essentials: First, the value of
the raw materials, wear and tear of machinery, etc., must be
incorporated in the new product; in the second place, the labourer must
reproduce the value of his own wages, and thirdly, a surplus over and
above the value of the capital advanced by the capitalist for the
aforementioned requisites. Unless these conditions are fulfilled, we
have not the capitalist system of production, but some other;
consequently, when we hear reformers, politicians and Labor leaders
wailing for "industrial efficiency first, and then a more equitable
distribution of wealth," the cry arises either from ignorance of the
economic laws underlying capitalism, or from a desire on the part of
those who know better to lead the workers into economic quagmires.

It
must be obvious at once that any method for increasing surplus value by
increased efficiency, longer hours of labor, new inventions, etc., must
be welcome to the capitalist; but what is not so apparent, and what the
economic apologists of the capitalist system like to conceal, is that
such increases have no internal relation whatever to the laws governing
wages.

Labor-power being a commodity, its value, like all other
commodities, is determined by its cost of production, and, being
somewhat inseparable from the labourer, its value, therefore, is based
on the minimum of the physical means of subsistence. It may rise above
this minimum, according to the standard of social development, the
degree of organised resistance to e exploitation, or it may fall below,
as in times of industrial depression, when unemployment is rife, and
when, as frequently happens, the workers starve, not because of
"decreased efficiency," but for the very opposite reason, that the
markets are glutted with the products of their labor. What must be
borne in mind is, and it is fully confirmed by the industrial history
of capitalism, that the means of subsistence is the determining factor,
the starting point from which all fluctuations in wages must be
explained, and not as our "Industrial Efficiency" experts would have us
believe, from the total product of the labourer.

Here it might be expedient to ask these advocates of efficiency a pertinent question or two.

If
it is a fact that wages are determined by the productivity of the
labourer, why is it that in the last half-century, when the
productiveness of labor by new discoveries and inventions, has been
increased a hundred-fold, when with the modern means of transportation
and communication, the natural resources of what our forefathers called
"the ends of the earth" have been brought within helloing distance, so
to speak, of the great centers of European population—why is it that
the great mass of workers are still getting but the bare means of
subsistence and living in constant dread of the bread-line? Or, to make
the question easier for our local "economists," why is it, as the
figures of the Commonwealth Statistician show, that the Australian
worker is receiving today a smaller proportion of his product than ten
years ago, despite the fact that, as shown by the same statistics, the
labourer’s productivity has increased enormously?

Of course
these gentry, whose hearts are overflowing with good intentions (?)
towards the working class will tell us that things should not be so,
that there is "room for improvement in the distribution of wealth,"
that "nobody sympathises with the position of the workers more than I
do," etc., etc.; but all this is merely equivalent to saying that
Capitalism should not be Capitalism; that the capitalist system of
production should not bring along its own natural laws; but the workers
do not benefit by this insufferable hypocrisy and patronage. As well
might they regret the tendency and danger of a smouldering volcano to
work havoc among the adjacent inhabitants as soon as a certain degree
of heat has been reached. Pious vapourings about an "ideal state of
things" and what the worker "ought to get" won't alter facts.

III.

It
is sometimes contended that every increase in the employer's profits
increases his available capital, and, therefore, enables him to give
employment to more wage-labourers, but this plea, as already indicated,
is merely a case of robbing Peter to pay Paul. There is another aspect
of the question, however. With the development of the Trust,
production, in accordance with the economic demand, is more and more
being regulated, always keeping in mind, of course, the solvent demand.
As the Trust develops, therefore, there will be an increasing tendency
to convert only that portion of the products of labor into capital
which is actually needed to supply the economic requirements of
society; hence, every increase in the intensity of labor, every method
for increasing the total product, "industrial efficiency," in a word,
which is so dear to the hearts of our exploiters, will have the very
opposite effect to that claimed for it, as a lesser quantity of that
portion of capital advanced as wages will be required.

So far as
those spheres of industry are concerned, in which the Trust has not yet
found a footing, the future of the worker is no less
precarious—assuming, of course, that the little schemes of the
capitalist class and their efficiency experts are allowed to come to
maturity. The history of the capitalist system affords many
illustrations of how blind competition among capitalists, with the
resultant phenomenon of over-production, affects the economic and
social well-being of the workers.

Marx throws a flood of light
on this question of overproduction in his third volume of "Capital" in
dealing with the cotton crisis in Lancashire following the year 1860.
Many authorities state that more cotton goods were produced in that
year than were absorbed by the world's markets in the following three.
As a result, over 50 per cent of the workers were thrown out of
employment; those actually employed were obliged to offer themselves
for any wages the manufacturers in their benevolence offered, 4 or 5
shillings ($0.96 or $1.20) per week being considered something above
the ordinary; young girls left the factories because they could not
earn as much as one shilling per week, and begged to be taken into the
charitable institutions. One factory inspector reported that "had
information concerning self-acting minders, that is to say, men who
operate a few self-actors, who had earned 8/11 ($2.14) after fourteen
days of full employment, and their house-rent was deducted from this
sum. The manufacturer returned one-half of this rent to them as a
gift." Marx parenthetically remarks, "how generous!" Thousands were
obliged to accept employment on relief work at "a bare ordinary charity
sum," those being lucky enough to obtain such work getting the
magnificent wages of from 5 to 12 shillings ($1.20 to $2.88) per week,
this last mentioned amount only being given to men with families of
eight!

"It was," says Marx, "in a way, a golden age for the
manufacturers, for the labourers had either to starve or work at any
price profitable for the bourgeois. The Assistance Committee acted as
watch-dogs. At the same time the manufacturers, in secret agreement
with the Government, hindered emigration as much as possible, either
for the purpose of having their capital, invested in the flesh and
blood of the laborers, ready at hand, or of safe-guarding the squeezing
of rent out of the labourers."

To what does all this point ?
Unmistakably to the fact that every minute worked by the cotton
operatives, over and above the time actually required to reproduce
their wages, every time a worker hastened across the floor of the
factory when he might have walked more leisurely, every time a machine
was oiled, when it ought to be allowed to run hot, every device of the
capitalist for improving efficiency, but hastened the coming of the
time when the workers should find themselves on the street corner, the
unpitied wretches of a system that rewards them for their industry by
starving them.

"But," someone will say, "this was in the
sixties." Capitalism has not changed its nature since. Whatever
restraint may have been placed on the Beast since those days—and it
does not amount to much—his natural tendency is still to run amuck, and
the advocates of "efficiency" are just the gentlemen who desire the
workers to slacken their hold on the reins. Besides, if it were
necessary, numerous occurrences of late years could be given as an
example of the effects of over-production, its demoralizing effects
upon the condition of the working class. The reader probably will
doubtless recall some instances in which he himself was perilously near
the bread-line after the boss had informed him "the job was finished"
or "times were slack." Enough has been said to show that where
competition reigns in production, every wail for industrial efficiency
on the part of the master class and their satellites is at bottom but a
cry for more profits, and should sound a note of warning to the workers
if an increased proportion of their numbers is not to be dumped on the
human scrap-heap.

IV.

To the student of economic
development, this loudly manifested anxiety of the capitalist class for
productive efficiency comes as no surprise. The rapidity with which
Japan, South America and other hitherto backward countries, have
entered into the arena of capitalist production is, wherever industry
is not internationally trustified, engendering an ever keener
competition for markets between the capitalists of the various
countries, and the kudos will naturally gravitate towards that country
where efficiency has reached the highest pitch; in other words, the
country where "scientific management of the human factor," as the
"Herald" expresses, has increased the rate of surplus value above all
others.

Unfortunately, in Australia statistical returns give us
but a bare indication of what that rate may be in this country. The
figures for the manufacturing industries in 1913, for instance, tell us
(and it must not be forgotten that the statistician is more or less
dependent upon the good faith of the manufacturers) that the value
added in the labor process to the materials of production was 65
millions, and the total wages paid 33 millions. At first glance this
would indicate a rate of surplus value of approximately 1OO per cent.
But the capital advanced as wages may not have been one-fifth of 33
million pounds. It depends, among other things, upon the turn-over.

Let
us take a simple illustration: I invest a capital of £200 productive
industry, £100 for raw material—the further consideration of which is
immaterial for the present argument—and £100 as capital reserved for
wages. Assuming the capital is turned over four times a year, and that
the value added in the labour process, as in Australian manufactures,
exceeds wages by 100 per cent, at the end of three months I realize the
total capital advanced as wages, with an additional value of £100. The
process is repeated in the second, third and fourth quarters of the
year, at the end of which, with a smile of complacency at my
munificence, I hand the Government official, whose business it is to
collect such data, a return bearing the items, "wages paid, £400,"
"value added by manufacture, £800." The figures are duly published in
the capitalist press, and the wages bill is exclusively dwelt upon to
the exclusion of all else; the workers are castigated for "trying to
cripple industry," and leading articles and speeches on "Industrial
Efficency[sic]," if the same wages are to be maintained, are the order
of the day. I wink the other eye, for deep down in the business
department of my capitalistic heart I know that the total capital
advanced by me as wages did not exceed £100 at any period during the
year, and the rate of surplus value was, therefore, in reality, not 100
per cent, but 400. I began the old year with a capital of £100 reserved
for wages. I enter the new with the same capital, after all dead
expenses have been met, and a nice little bonus ungrudgingly handed
over to me by the workers, who are duly grateful for my being so kind
as to give them-work! They will be given "work" till eternity, provided
they give me, as formerly, the product. Nay, I may also (provided the
slave market is abundantly stocked, in case of trouble) take the tip of
my "economic experts" and put the stop-watch and cinematograph on their
movements, in order that some of them may doubly appreciate the
"benefits" of work when they find themselves unemployed as a
consequence of my "scientific management."

Is not this the game
that is being played before the workers' eyes at this moment? What is
the solution? "One Big Union," replies some one. But One Big Union
won't materialise in a day. The antidote to the "Industrial Efficiency"
cry lies in an immediate agitation for a shorter work-day, combined
with the intelligent adoption of ca' canny, "go easy" and other methods
of sabotage on the job. This is vitally necessary for all workers,
irrespective of their beliefs as to methods of organisation, political,
religious or racial prejudices. The Surplus Value of the capitalist
class must be curtailed, for its every increase strengthens the bonds
of slavery. One Big Union alone can entirely strike off the shackles.

The
master class are fully alive to the situation, and, while they are at
this particular juncture preying on the workers' credulity with the
hypocritical cry of "no classes," they are insidiously and
unscrupulously laying their plans for the prosecution of the class war
with their usual brutal disregard for the workers' welfare. Let us
remember, then, that devolution is possible in human society as well as
evolution, that deterioration must as surely follow apathy as progress
in our material conditions will follow intelligent agitation and
action. "Scientific Management" must be met by "Scientific Sabotage" if
the "Law of Progress" is not a law of which the boss is to be left a
monopoly.

(Note.—Since the above was written, events brought
about by the war indicate that the ruling class is determined to have
"increased efficiency" in the workshop, even if it has to be enforced
at the point of the bayonet.

The Munitions Act in England is a
new move in this direction, and while the war may be the immediate
cause of the introduction of this Act, there can scarcely be a doubt
that if it becomes justified from the efficiency standpoint, the
principle of compulsion, which means no more nor less than industrial
conscription, has come to stay in industry, so far as the master class
is concerned.

All this goes once more to show what the I. W. W.
unceasingly teaches, that the war against exploitation must of
necessity in the future be carried out on the job. Every new move of
the master class to increase the intensity of labour, and thereby the
total product, calls for a counter move and new tactics on the part of
the workers right where such products are created.

This is bound
to raise a howl of execration from the efficiency experts; but the
revolt of the South Wales miners at present in progress affords a
striking illustration of the hypocrisy and falsehood of their economic
teaching, showing conclusively that though the workers' output be ever
so large, they have to fight stubbornly for every cent wrested from the
rapacious hand of the class alone which benefits by efficiency.

This
strike also shows that, despite the chloroforming propensities of
war-mad jingoes, the instinct of the workers is, at bottom, correct,
and affords a better criterion of what constitutes economic truth than
all the theorising of the spectacled "experts" who study the production
and distribution of wealth, and the class struggle arising therefrom,
from the comfortable depths of an arm-chair.

It is manifest that
the war must cause a considerable shortage of labour-power in the
market when peace is again restored, as compared with the previous
supply. Every possible effort is therefore going to be made to get the
last ounce of value out of the labour-power available, and that the
master class is fully alive to the occasion the following cable from a
recent issue of the "Sun" amply proves:—

SCIENCE IN INDUSTRY.AN IMPORTANT MOVEMENT.(Published in the Times.)LONDON, Tuesday,

A
Government White Paper outlines a scheme of organising[sic] and
developing industrial scientific research with the object of
establishing a permanent body consisting of a Privy Council committee,
with a small advisory council, the Privy Council committee to include
the Lord President, the Chancellor of the Exchequer, the Secretary for
Scotland, the Presidents of the Boards of Trade and Education, Lord
Haldane, Mr. A. H. Dyke Acland, and Mr. Pike Pease.

The advisory
council is to consist of the best scientific brains of the country, and
its scope will be to promote and organise[sic] scientific research in
trades and industry, particularly in regard to those suffering through
inability to reproduce trade processes which are localised abroad,
principally in Germany.

This is significant when judged in
conjunction with the clamour for efficiency, now a daily feature in the
capitalist press. A shining light of that pet organisation of
capitalists, known as the Workers' Educational Association, only
recently let himself go to the extent of a third of a column in the
Sydney "Herald," pointing out that the pensioning of "one-armed,
one-legged, one-eyed and stiff-jointed soldiers," when they ought to be
employed in industry, was a shameful waste of "productive energy."

There
arises too a louder and bolder demand for female and child labour in
nearly all branches of industry. The "Weekly Trade Report," the private
organ of the Merchants' and Traders' Association of Australasia, not
many weeks ago, for instance, brazenly declared that factory
legislation must be thrust aside, that, whatever the unions may do,
employers must be allowed to take advantage of "women, boys and girls
who are willing (!) to work for low wages and long hours!"

Workers
would, therefore, do well to hearken to the masters' battle-cry, a cry
for their sweat and blood, and recognise that the real industrial
struggles of the class war have yet to be fought. The vacillating and
compromising policy of Trade Unionism will no longer suffice. A virile
organisation knowing no law but that of expediency, ready at all times
and by the adoption of any means, to advance the interests of the
working class, is an absolute necessity, if we are not to sink into a
slavery more damnable than any that history knows of.—T. G.